The Sociological Imagination

As sociologists, we deal with a wide range of empirical and philosophical phenomena, but their scope, in universal terms, is quite narrow: locked somewhere between the individual human and the whole of humanity. With this in mind, the Idle Ethnographer admits to having a hard time justifying this particular post. Initially, I decided to post it just because it is amazing, fascinating, educational, and humbling. It is a visualisation of the universe and its physical scale.

But, being an Ethnographer, albeit Idle, I could not resist racking my brains for potential sociological uses. E.g., in the sociology of science, or that of Western European modernity. A symbolic analysis would reveal what is important enough to be given as an example in a scientific visualisation. The small and large objects are more impersonal, detached and ‘scientific’, while examples closer in size to humans only appear random, but their range is, in fact, highly socially conditioned (HIV virus, red blood cell, coffee bean, Rubic cube, silhouette or a male human being of average (Caucasian) height; Eiffel tower; USA map; length of a marathon). There are also a few hidden jokes: if you watch carefully, you’ll spot them. Or perhaps one can just watch it as a neat visual representation of the physical world in which we live. Or as a cosmology. Or a fairy tale. Or with the reverence of a tiny speck in the face of the universe. I leave this to your sociological imaginations.

Screenshot from the Scale of the Universe, scaleofuniverse.com

Click here to go to the Scale of the Universe website

Continuing yesterday’s theme (which we picked at Brainpickings.org), here is another book which provides ample visual material for a historical analysis of femininity in the last century: Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way). Read Brainpicking’s review (with pictures!) here.

'Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way)', by Sue Macy

This week I came across two very different works of art which nevertheless have something important in common: they both aim to transcend the shackles of linear time and peak into another historic period with the help of artistic (and sociological!) imagination.

The first one is a now outdated look into the future. It is always fascinating to see how our life today differs (or is similar to) what our great-grand parents imagined it. Think about how you imagine the year 2100. In 1910, the French painter Villemard produced a series of futuristic postcards with his vision of life in 2000. What is most fascinating is that most of his predictions have come true: the imagery is different, but the technical functionality of today’s world is heavily based on the reveries of our Victorian ancestors. The future is to a large extent a self-fulfilling prophecy – at least within a the framework of a modern society !

See the collection of 20 postcards here and on flickr

The second time-erasing magic is in the works of Russian photographer Sergey Larenkov (Сергей Ларенков). He replicates with amazing precision existing images taken during the Second World War by retaking the shots from the same perspective and angle today, and merges the old and new images. (Larenkov is not even a professional photographer: he is a sea pilot whose hobby is history! Check out his website here) Twenty of his photos were initially posted here and a little later the author also gave an interview to the Mymodernnet website which can be read here.

What do you think? Do you have interesting visual materials – yours, or gems that you have found on the web? Email us on s.i.imagery@gmail.com and we’ll feature them in our Visual Sociology column!